


Sunshine and a Flock of Steves

by Bluandorange, zetsubonna



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: A Roger of Steves, A Spangle of Captain Americas, Clones, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2252679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluandorange/pseuds/Bluandorange, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsubonna/pseuds/zetsubonna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While razing the latest Hydra base on his list, the Asset stumbles upon a group of child soldiers, the products of Project Infinity. They are clones of Steve.</p>
<p>They call him 'Sunshine'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sunshine

* * *

 

 

"Whaddaya think that sound is?" 

Twooie gives the door a good long stare. She’s concentrating as hard as she can, but it don't matter how much she strains to listen, she can’t make much of anything out from where she is. They moved Sev’ and Eight’s crib to the quietest part of the nursery all the way back when it was still Five’s place to sleep. She considers leaving their crib-side now, but if something’s happening, someone might need to carry them or hide them. She should stay where she is.

Trip was asking One, anyway, and he’s much closer. He crosses right to the door, tilting his good ear toward it, listening, and after a few heavy seconds he looks back up and says, “Gunshots. Some yelling, too.”

Four says a bad word she learned from their handler, Trip goes, “don’t say that!” and Twooie and One go “Shhh!” at the same time. 

"Whadda we do?" Four asks. One shushes her again and she repeats herself in a whisper; "whadda we  _do?”_

"We should hide," Twooie says, raising her chin. One nods as he crosses to Six and pulls him up off his bunk and into his arms. Six monkeys to One’s front and doesn't say a word as they slide under One's bed. They all have hiding places. They've done drills, so they’d be ready if something like this happened. They were told there’d be an alarm, though. Something must’ve happened to it, too.

Twooie turns and starts rooting through the crib blankets, looking for binkeys. She finds Sev’s but not Eight’s. “Four,” she hisses. “Four, help me find Eight’s binkey.”

"We don’t have time," Trip says. He’s come over to take Eight in his arms. "Just go." 

"Someone get the lights!" One hisses. Twooie’s already headed for the closet and there’s a stressful few seconds where the lights  _stay on_  and she knows she’s on the other side of the room and can’t do anything,  _but should do everything_ , she’s second-oldest, it’s her job—but then the lights shut off and she and Trip push into the furthest corner of the closet. Four darts in after them and shoves her way between them. This is  _not_ her hiding spot, she's supposed to be with _Five_ , but its too late now. The lights are off and the door is closed, so she's staying.

Twooie strains her ears, but the shuffling’s died down and everyone seems settled and all she can hear is her heartbeat and the shallow breaths of her family around her.

One doesn't breathe. He should breathe, he knows holding his breath is going to make his friggin’ gasping act up and the trick is not to hold your breath when you’re scared it’s to breathe real slow and shallow-like but he’s afraid that if he breathes, Six’ll push in closer to his chest to try and copy him and any arrhythmia of his thundering heart will scare Six even worse.

No, One holds his breath and keeps his eyes wide as he can and locked on the door and strokes Six’s back as soothing as he can when he’s trying to keep his damned hands from shaking, he’s scared as crap. And if he’s scared as crap, Twooie’s scared, too, and she’ll try even harder than he is to play brave ‘cause she’s a friggin’ stubborn brat.

Four growls a little and buries her face in Twooie’s back and One furrows his brows real tight and rolls his eyes hard. Being the oldest of this pack is a friggin’ chore when it ain't a nightmare and Twooie’s the only damn person in the world who understands. Trip thinks he does but Trip don’t know near as much as he thinks he does. He ain’t dumb, ain’t none of them dumb,  _obviously_ , but Trip’s learning, same as Four’s learning, and One and Twooie already got the ropes down at this point.

The door swings open slow, and One lets himself breathe because if he doesn't, Six’s gonna growl, thinkin’ he’s smart by copying Four. He wants to smack Four in the back of her head, but Four’s in the closet and he and Six are under the bed. There’s a time for bein’ ferocious and there’s a time for shutting the Hell up. He peers through the bed skirt.

The guy coming in looks confused. That’s the only word for it, he’s confused. The cribs throw him off. The toys. The crayons- so many crayons, they go through two hundred-twenty packs a week, and that’s just the oldest four. The girls see colors better than the boys, they even out their scribbles, but he and Trip whittle greens, blues, purples, blacks and grays down to nubbins without meaning to, since it’s what they can see best.

Boots, the guy’s wearing big black combat boots, he’s got paint over his eyes and scraggly hair and his sleeve is missing and it looks like his arm is metal, some kind of robot thing, which would be cool, maybe, if it weren't damn terrifying, a metal arm could crush any of their skulls like a damn grapefruit and ain't that a pretty picture he does  _not_  need to be sharing with the babies?

One breathes in, real slow and steady, cupping his hand against the back of Six’s neck, coaching him to listen, to copy. In real slow, out real slow, quiet, quiet, quiet like mice. And maybe everything would have been okay, if not for Five, but One, Twooie, Trip and Four always near forget Five ain’t the big boy he thinks he is, right up until the silly little brat gets so frustrated and angry he loses his temper and starts crying.

Four tightens her grip on Twooie’s shoulder, right up to the point of painful, and Twooie doesn't gotta see her, she can  _feel_  her shift onto the balls of her feet, can guess that Trip’s doing the same right at her side from the way the air shifts, and just because she  _knows_  them. They’re all the same. She’s willing to bet that One’s got the same itching in his bones as them right now, as her. Five just became a target. Twooie can’t even see of  _what_  yet, but she heard the door open, watched the light wash in from the hallway and line the crack of the shut closet door, is starting to smell the fire down the hall. She knows someone’s  _there,_ and that Five’s in danger, and she can’t just  _sit here_. 

She turns and pushes Sev into Four’s arms, which makes Four  _responsible,_ which means Four has to  _stay_. Trip has to, too, but she doesn't have the time to remind him, he should already  _know_ that and she’s gotta see—she’s gotta— _Five_ _needs her-_ -

Twooie peeks out the closet and feels a scream try to fight its way up outta her throat. The intruder’s kneeling by Five’s hiding place, reaching for him as Twooie watches, and Five sobs out, “Don’t!” and Twooie doesn't think, she rushes the man and grabs at his long, ugly hair with both hands, making fists and  _pulling_. 

"Leave ‘im alone!" she shouts.

"Oh, for cryin’ up a-" One snarls from under the bed, and he drops his mouth to Six’s ear, squeezing him tight as he can without cutting off air. "Now, you listen, you listen  _good_ , Sixish, you stay  _right here,_ you don’t move for nothin’ less Trip or Four comes to get you, crystal?”

And before Six can even nod his little head, he’s shoved back up against the wall and One’s rolling out from under the bed, running at the stranger full-tilt, and it’d be a good swing with the baseball bat if the stranger’s damn robot arm wasn't even faster than the fastest One can get- and One’s the fastest out of all of them.

"Run, stupid!" One growls at Twooie, crashing into her from the side and jarring her hands loose, because Trip can’t manage the rugrats by himself. The stranger crushes the bat without thinking, blinking back and forth from Five to One before his chin drops and he takes in Twooie as well, staring as she scrambles to her feet. He drops the splintered bat and, still distractedly glancing at Five with little jerks of his head, refocuses his attention on One.

"Steve?"

"Who the Hell is Steve?" One demands, even as he draws his hand back into a tight, perfect fist and aims it right for the stranger’s eye.

The stranger takes the punch. Absorbs it, doesn't even try to block it, rolls his head with it like One’s been taught to, lets the momentum disperse with the follow-through after the impact.

"How many of you  _are_  there?” the stranger murmurs, his voice soft, jaw loose. He looks lost, startled more than anything, not angry, not scary, just confused.

One stands in front of his _stupid_  little sister and his furiously sobbing little brother, narrow chest heaving, feet planted firmly apart, and tilts his head to the side, reassessing the threat. This guy killed their handlers, probably. He’s the source of all the debris and explosions and smoke, almost definitely. But he’s looking at One like he  _knows_  him, and nobody knows him, none of them have ever even been outside to know anybody, so that don’t make any sense at all.

"Who the Hell is Steve?" One repeats, both hands clenched into fists. "N’who the Hell are you?"

"You look just like him," the man says. He doesn't move to stop Twooie from scooping up one splintered end of the bat, doesn't stop her from turning all the pointy-bits his way. 

"He didn’—ask you if—he did," Twooie says, her breath sticking in her throat, causing her to gasp. She makes a jerking motion with the broken bat, an aborted stab meant to threaten the guy into moving, but he doesn't so much as blink. He just keeps staring at her. It’s  _freaky_. “Answer the question—an’ get the  _hell_ away—from my brother!” 

Five doesn’t wait for the guy to do as he’s told. He pushes past him and he’s so  _damn lucky_ that the guy seems too stunned to move, that he just lets him run on by without so much as a twitch. Five presses himself to One’s side, both hands fisted in his shirt, half of his blotchy face covered but one angry, red-rimmed eye set squarely on the intruder. The man stares back at him, scans his eyes over from Five to One to Two, and then his eyes stick on her again and get all weird and far away and she wants to  _scream_  at him to leave, but she tries to focus on her breathing instead because she's no good to anybody if she goes into an attack. 

She shoots One an expectant look. She’s no idea what to do. She doesn't always need One’s help—she’s second-oldest, she makes plenty of the decisions without him, even  _for_  him when he’s  _wrong—_ but she’s  _no_ idea what to make of this guy. Her heartbeats skipping in her ears and she’s feeling all jittery like all she wants is to take a swing at the guy until he’s got splinters all in the side of his face, but she doesn't know if she should. 

"Get your ‘haler," One tells Twooie, frowning vaguely in her direction without taking his eyes off the stranger’s. His hand drops instinctively to the middle of Five’s back. "Five’s, too, ‘fore he flips his sh- lid."

Five sniffles into One’s shirt in dissent, but he can hear the hitch to it.

One scans this guy. Head to toe. He’s not one of  _them_ \- too much muscle, not  _blond_ , not  _wheezy_ \- but he’s got that look, the look he knows they get when they've had their lessons drilled into them a little too vigorous-like.

One snaps his fingers loudly in the guy’s face. He wouldn't ever do that to a handler, he likes his fingers whole, but this guy’s not a handler.

"He’s an experiment," One pronounces, calm and analytic. "Different batch. Better mats, looks like, but same conditioning. Don’t know what the Hell the arm’s about- mighta come off or somethin’. Hey. Sunshine. Wake the fuck up."

"One!" Twooie hisses, even as she’s rooting through the medicine box and fishing out inhalers. "Don’t-"

"No,  _look_  at him,” One barks. “He’s  _out_  of it. Like when they run us through the flash-lights. His programming’s on the blink, or he wouldn’ta taken out the whole damn base- take us at least another dozen or two years to manage that, but we  _were_  gonna get around to it.”

Twooie grumbles her disapproval at him talking 'bout  _the plan_  out loud- they've only ever communicated it in drawings, finger signs andt codes only they know, but One ignores her. He snorts out an exhalation when the next set of snaps wakes the stranger up again.

"How blown up is this place?" he demands.

"Everything’s on fire," the stranger mumbles. "I didn't know you were in here."

"Ain't nobody suppose to know," One says impatiently, rolling his eyes. "Is it gonna auto destruct? Because I've got-" he squints, his scowl deepens. "Eight of us, okay? There’s eight of us, and I’m the biggest. Can’t none of us breathe, allergic to damn near everything-"

"Diabetic," the man mumbles. "Diabetic, scoliosis, color blind, anemic, arrhythmic heart, asthma, nervous disorder, astigmatic-"

"Got the whole damn laundry list, then," One confirms, rolling his eyes and nodding his head curtly. "Smart, stubborn and  _mean_ , that’s all they say we got goin’ for us.”

"Makes sense," the stranger mumbles, and there’s a funny edge to his smile One’s not sure he likes, but he ain't got time to be picky if they’re going to get the bitties out of a house-fire.

"Whatever you say," One says, squinting suspiciously. "Trip. Four. Escalate. Dress everybody. Five-"

Five sucks on his inhaler, still glaring at the stranger, his fist clenched in Twooie’s shirt.

"Help Twooie pack the meds. Sixish?"

Six crawls out from under the bed and toddles over to One, who in turn redirects him Trip’s way to get all bundled up and ready to go. They've all got a set of out-door clothes, though they don’t get a chance to wear ‘em much. Trip and Four get the three youngest all set, taking turns stealing glances at the stranger and discussing their observations under their breaths. 

Twooie keeps looking at him, too, mostly letting Five pack the black medicine bag used for trips. She double-checks his work, then sends him over to his sister to get changed. Shouldering on the pack, she crosses back over to One’s side.

"I guess we should thank you," she says. "For gettin’ rid of our handlers for us." One grunts his assent. The man’s eyes flit over to her and away again. He shrugs, like he doesn't know what to do with the praise, if it could be called that. Twooie turns to One and makes a quick sign that she  _doesn't_ think the man should come with them. One clicks his tongue and flaps his hand at her; this guy could be  _useful_.

"Wha’ser name?" Four asks. She’s started changing her own pants, the youngest’s all taken care of, and is looking at the older experiment with sharp, expectant eyes.

When the man doesn't respond, really doesn't seem to know  _how_  to, Trip prompts; “What number they give you?”

One rolls his eyes, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

"Okay, Sunshine," he drawls, like he’s talking to the possible  _stupidest_  person he’s  _ever_  met in life, a tone only Twooie and Trip have ever heard him take with  _anybody_ , since the last doctor he took it with ended up missing his eyetooth. One had broken his first two knuckles and had to be taped up, but he’d laughed himself sick every time they’d tried to tell him he’d done wrong until they’d lighted him up, and the rest of the Firsts had resolved  _never to tell him about it_  because One was crazy enough to do it again.

He points. “We’re Project Infinity. The  _whitejackets_  call me Alpha, but I hate it, so don’t. I’m  _One_. This is Two, call her Beta and I’ll help her stab you. Three prefers Trip, or Triplet. Four, Five. Six, Sixish if he  _loves_  you,  _which he don’t_. The bits are Sev and Eight. Seven  _bites_ , Eight wants to, but she ain’t got all her teeth yet. What’s your  _project_  and your  _handle,_ you raccoon-eyed monster?”

Trip snorts, trying to hold in a horrified laugh. “One!”

"Wonder he even knows what a raccoon  _is_ ,” One sniffs, flicking his floppy blond hair off his forehead, fearless as ever.

"They call me The Asset," the stranger mumbles, pushing his hair back from his face. "Project Winter Soldier."

"And is that what you want  _us_  to call you?” Four prompts, sounding a little less impatient than the other three older ones, but there’s a frown tugging at her lips. The Asset’s trained enough to see the way she’s threading the keys to the med kit back and forth through her fingers looks like she’s stimming or comforting herself, but shifting her grip just so, brace the keys between her little fingers and it becomes a stabbing weapon, adding a bite to any punch she might throw.

The Asset drops his eyes and splays his fingertips across his brow. “Steve called me-” he starts, then frowns, pressing his lips together and shaking his head. "Forget it. ‘Sunshine’ works.”

One smirks. Two raises her eyebrow. Trip mirrors both of them. Four bites her lips together to keep from copying, too, and Five openly snickers.

"Sunshine it is," One pronounces.

Twooie rolls her eyes and mutters, “don’t encourage him,” under her breath. 

Yeah, she sees the idea of freedom’s already gone to One’s head and set his knife-tongue loose again. Four’ll be next. They’ll become insufferable, may drag Trip along with them, and if she’s not careful, Five and Six are liable to follow along, blind leading the blind. She was the same way, once. She can be just as bad if she’s not careful. The thing is Twooie took some of her ‘lessons’ in restraint to heart. Someone had to. One sure as hell wasn't gonna and she couldn't expect Trip take the burden from her. She could look after One, but Trip had no need to worry about her. She decided all that a long time ago. 

She raises her chin and fixes her older brother with a Look, “are you done? Get changed already.” One's eyes snap to her, then give her a once-over, a little surprised to find she’s changed out of her jammies and is all ready to go. “I did it while you were busy enjoying the sound’a your own voice,” she says. He huffs, but starts stripping as he cross the room to the closet. She doesn't let up, “we’re all waitin’ on you now. Try and get done before we all die’a smoke inhalation.”

One shoots a sharp, “Shuddup,” over his shoulder, and tugs up his pants. 

Twooie looks over her family and deigns them indeed ready to move out. Sev looks a little fussy, but she thinks once they start moving, he’ll calm down. He’s a smart boy, just like his brothers. She takes Sixish’s hand, since Trip and Four have their hands full of bitties. Finally, she looks back to the older experiment. 

"You gonna help us get out of here?" she asks. It’s less of a question and more of a challenge. She has an argument on the tip of her tongue should he try and worm his way out of seeing them to safety, now that One's decided they're gonna wring the Asset of all he's worth. She knows how the training should work; if she phrases it right, 'Sunshine' won’t be able to say no. 

He doesn't try to say no. He rises to his feet in one fluid motion and gives her a solemn nod. After holding his make-up rimmed eyes for a beat, she nods back.

One, after he’s tied up his boots, goes for the  _other_  baseball bat, because there’s nearly enough of them to be a baseball team in the first place. He hands the bat to Five and the sizable med kit to ‘Sunshine,’ and takes one last look around the rooms that’ve been theirs for more months now than he cares to count.

One ain't much for sentiment. He makes sure they haven’t forgotten anything of importance, squeezing Five’s hand when the younger boy whimpers very softly at the pile of crayon boxes.

"Shuddup," he warns. "We’re travellin’ light. We can get more crayons later, we can’t go back for more of  _us,_  can we?”

Five snorts irritably at his feet and tries not to look forlorn. He fails. One, very subtly, gives his little fingers a bracing squeeze, makes the tiniest motion of his head for Five to check his waistband. At the small of One’s back is the only other thing they’re  _not_ leaving behind: Twooie’s colored pencils, the most prized possession  _any_  of them has, and she’s not even the one who went back for them,  _One_  is.

One’s gestures of affection, of comfort, of  _mercy_  are usually tightly and firmly reserved for the bitties, and now that he’s sleeping in a big bed, potty trained and learning to  _count_  his own insulin- only One and Twooie can give themselves their own shots, even Trip can’t do that yet- Five’s almost not a bit anymore. One got Twooie’s pencils, because Twooie’s taking care of everybody else, and he made sure Five got the bat, even if they’re leaving behind the balls and the gloves. Nobody else got anything at all.

Five knows when to be grateful. He forces his face stoic and squeezes back.

The fiery inferno would have made a lesser pack of kids cry, but the Steves- the Asset can’t help but think of them as  _a flock of Steves-_  don’t make a peep of protest. Collars go over noses. Breaths are counted carefully. They’re not quite a human chain, but they don’t let each other out of sight for even five seconds. They stick close, they move quick, and they trust him, necessarily, with their lives.

And then there they are, the nine of them, outside of a now rapidly collapsing Hydra research facility in the first flares of sundown.

* * *

 

"We’re out," One announces, letting Five’s hand drop. Five adjusts the bat on his shoulder, puts on his bravest frown, shoves his freed hand into his pocket.

"Now what?"

They’d never gotten this far with their plan. The biggest hurdle had always been how best to off the whitejackets and raze the facility on their way out. They knew—they being One, Twooie and Trip, and only  _very_  recently Four—that the less they left behind, the less the other facilities would have to go on if they tried hunting them down for recapture. Their plans reflected this, the latest ideation going as far as to include faking their own deaths, 'cuz that way, the trail would appear cold from the get-go. They hadn't quite reached the ‘how’ part there yet, either.

Not that it matters now. 

Now they’re out. They’re out in the  _real_  world and they don’t got a choice; they’re gonna have to hit the ground running.

They know some things—certain social customs, basic history, fluent English and passable Spanish—but are painfully ignorant where it counts. Like in geography, for example. They know they’re in a country called the United States of America, located in the center of the continent of North America, but the dimensions of said country and continent had been pointedly kept from them by their handlers. 

Twooie does not want ‘Sunshine’ to know their limits, so she chooses her words carefully. 

"Do you have a map?" she asks him. ‘Sunshine’ nods. Every member of Twooie’s family, save for the bitties, takes careful note of which pocket ‘Sunshine’ pulls his map from, as well the small flashlight that follows. As he kneels to spread the map on the ground, he either doesn't notice Trip assessing the rest of his gear or doesn't mind it. Twooie and One kneel beside him; he turns on the flashlight, illuminating the paper for them to read.

The map says ‘KANSAS’ across the top. A thickly outlined rectangle (with what looks like a bite taken outta the top right corner) sits dead center in the page. It’s divided into many smaller, often uneven and lopsided rectangles, interwoven with shaky blue, black and yellow lines of varying lengths and weights. Peppering the page are dots, each labeled in block letters.

'OTTAWA', 'TOPEKA', 'JUNCTION CITY, 'EMPORIA', 'MANHATTAN' are clustered near each other, on the right, near the chewed out corner. A near perfect line of dots trail from just right of center on down to the bottom of the rectangle; 'SALINA', 'MCPHERSON', 'WITCHITA', 'DERBY', 'ARKANSAS CITY'. Move left, and the dots become further and further apart, only four big ones in all of the left-hand side and all spread out far from one another; 'HAYS', 'GREAT BEND', 'DODGE CITY', 'PRATT'. 

Cities. The dots are cities.

There’s other markings, made by hand in red marker, almost exclusively on the far, far left. 

"Where’s the nearest city?" Twooie prompts. She’s not surprised when ‘Sunshine’ points to a dot near one of his markings. The dot is tiny, so far left it’s just short of touching the edge of the big, chewed rectangle. ‘GOODLAND’. "And we’re here," she says, pointing to the closest marking. ‘Sunshine’ nods.

Twooie locates the legend; it states every couple’a centimeters on the map translates to five miles of land. Using her finger, she counts up from where they are, to where they should be. 

"So it’s thirty-eight miles away…"

One fixes ‘Sunshine’ with a piercing look. “You didn't  _walk_  all the way out here, did you?”

'Sunshine' looks at One and One flinches a little, and Twooie, Trip and Four can watch him re-calibrate like a testing machine.

"Shitfire," One mutters. "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,  _Goddamnit fuck_.”

He runs both hands through his hair, paces around in a circle. Five pins himself to Four, tangling his fingers in her shirt, burying his face in her shoulder.

"Calm  _down_ ,” Twooie hisses, and the Asset watches as the Steves convene, get closer together. Fingers flicker- it’s not ASL, it’s not even ISL, he’s not sure what it is- and tongues click. It  _looks_  like every one of them’s a bundle of  _nerves_ , but he’s seen and learned too many military codes to buy that for a second-

They’re  _talking_ , and they don’t want him to know what they’re saying, so it’s about him.

One comes back. Twooie looks resigned, Trip looks arch, detached. Four and Five and the bitties are smirking at him like a bunch of kittens eyeballing milk-soaked kibble or a wounded mouse.

"You look like you just figured something out," ‘Sunshine’ murmurs, squinting, feeling apprehensive.

"We’re the brains of this little shit circus," One says, the corner of his lips twitching in a little humorless smile, not unlike that of the bitties. "Your Steve’s our  _template_. You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.”

Trip sighs. “Can we not swear in front of the bits?”

"Bits’ve heard worse," One says impassively. His eyes stay on 'Sunshine'. "Tell me if I’m wrong: Steve’s like us, but with you he acts as a handler. You’re the muscle, Steve’s the brains. Only Steve ain't driving you now, for whatever reason, so the only thought you got left in your head is  _kill everybody ain’t Steve_.” 

There’s a slight tilt to ‘Sunshine’s’ head that doesn't say no. A humorless smile, not unlike One’s. Twooie sighs, shaking her head. Trip snorts derisively.

"Kill everybody ain't Steve works just fine for us, since we happen to be Steve," One says, his expression tight. "Guessing Steve’s fully functional, too, none of this fu-"

"You’re functioning  _as normal_ ,” ‘Sunshine’ asserts. He sounds firm, almost  _deadly_  firm. Twooie, Trip and Four perk up, and even One relaxes a little. “You’re exactly how you’re supposed to be. Never let nobody tell you different.”

More fingers flickering. A few fake coughs. One’s face relaxes.

"Okay, Sunshine. You take us to the car. We get the Hell out of Kansas. But as soon as we get strapped in, you’re going to tell us every goddamn thing you can figure about Project Infinity."

"I don’t know anything about-" ‘Sunshine’ begins, but the Steves glare at him piercingly and his mouth snaps shut. He knows who Steve is; that'd be a good place to start.

"Vehicle," Twooie prompts him.

"Ain't got car seats," ‘Sunshine’ warns her, leading the way forward.

"So we’ll sit in the wheel wells."

"Ain't got a roof, neither."

That puts a snare in One’s plan, which he  _hates_.

* * *

 

'Sunshine's got a jeep tucked into a cluster of trees approximately 350 yards off from the smoldering base. Once there, he leaves the Steves to decide on the seating arrangements while he changes out of his tactical gear and into civvies. One ends up taking the front seat with Sev and Eight huddled in his lap. Five and Six hunker down in the wheel well, heads just barely brushing the glove compartment. Twooie, Trip and Four take to the back. There ain't any buckles back there, so they try to lock themselves in place by bracing their legs and holding onto the sidebars and each other

The ride is rough and loud, too loud to discuss anything important. They spend almost half an hour off-road and all the Steves besides One and the bitties he’s holding get jostled around something awful. After the fourth time Five and Six crack their heads on the underside of the glove compartment, One smacks ‘Sunshine’ and yells at him to throw the clunker into park. Five and Six then get transferred to ‘Sunshine’s’ lap. Twooie makes noises about this but is overruled.

Riding in the back isn't the comfiest thing in the world, but Four  _likes_  it. The bumps are fun and the wind is  _exciting_  and she keeps trying to pull herself up so she can brace against the bars and pretend she’s surfing. Trip yanks her back down by her pants every time. Its not that he doesn't understand, doesn't think it’d be fun to try himself, he just knows better. Twooie knows he knows better and would have his hide if he acted otherwise.

When they finally make it to a road, its two lanes and unlit. ‘Sunshine’ presses the gas, accelerating them up past sixty mph, and the wind blowing through the cab becomes colder, harsher. Four squeezes her way in between Twooie and Trip for warmth. One pulls the bitties closer to his chest. None of them tell ‘Sunshine’ to slow down. By the time ‘Sunshine’ pulls into a spot outside the Comfort Inn on the outskirts of Goodland, every Steve in the backseat is just about shivering and sniffling out of their skins.

* * *

 

'Sunshine's got a room, up on the second floor, near the end of the parking lot. There are two double beds and One, Twooie and Trip set to flicking at each other. Watching them, the Asset realizes why their private language is made of gestures and not gibberish-  _the babies can do it, too_. Eight, if her wildly swinging hands and frantically wiggling fingers are any indication, has a  _lot_ of goddamn  _opinions_  for a gal who ain't even got all her teeth yet.

Four’s put in charge of baths, which seems a big job for a little sprite, but she washes Seven and Eight just fine on her own and Six handles the towels. Once the babies are wrapped up cozy in towels and the bigger Steves’ coats, One and Twooie exchange a look that seems to speak a dozen volumes, and then One’s got his hands in his pockets and he’s giving ‘Sunshine’ a steady, prompting look while Five and Six get ready for their bath. The Steves didn't seem to care if ‘Sunshine’ caught sight of the others getting stripped down to sleep, but Six makes a point of glaring at him as he shuts the door.

"We’re gonna need more clothes," One says to ‘Sunshine’ as he takes him by one sleeve, and ‘Sunshine’ blinks down at him, letting himself be pulled back toward out of the room and toward the Jeep. "Two’s got it." The lock clicks behind them as if to say yes, yes she does. "You and me are goin’ to a department store. If you ain't got cash, I can steal anything, not even an issue, but."

One holds up the Asset’s billfold. It wasn’t even  _in his pocket_ , how quick is this little shit?

"I don’t think that’s gonna be necessary, is it?"

The Asset laughs softly. “Don’t sound like I've got much choice,” he murmurs.

"You ain't," One agrees. "We’re gonna need to eat, too. While we work on the clothes, you can explain to me about the template."

The Asset processes for a moment. “Oh. Steve.”

"Yeah," One says, nodding again. "Gonna need you to tell me all about yer  buddy Steve, and why the Hell the whitejackets would want a million of him."


	2. Thing One and Thing Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunshine and One hit the Wal-Mart to outfit the Steves for life on the run.
> 
> Meanwhile, Twooie and the rest of the crew avail themselves of motel room resources and Sunshine's weapons cache.

Wal-Mart is the closest, the most surveilled and always, always the most anonymous.

It’s just shy of midnight when Sunshine and One get to the giant store in the middle of nothing else, and One cases the joint like he’s robbing a bank. He’s not obvious about it, but Sunshine knows what the kid is doing because he does it himself, any time he goes anywhere and especially when he’s in a big place like this. Sunshine’s civvies are black jeans, a black shirt and a beat up coat like any one of a million other veterans, a glove over his metal hand and even that shoved into his pocket. One holds his right hand like he owns it, like they’ve always walked this way, and Sunshine wonders at the comfort he takes in the cool, clammy little hand and the anemia he knows is behind that coolness.

One only lets Sunshine go when they get the cart, and Sunshine doesn’t even question being on cart duty, One would get it himself except he’s too goddamn short to see over the fucking thing so he can’t. He leads, though, he takes point at the end of the cart and gives little tugs to steer exactly where he wants to go, head tilted back to raise his sightline and take it as far as it will go.

"They ever get you glasses?" Sunshine mutters.

"Once. Broke ‘em. Threatened me with laser surgery," One says, his smile tight. "Learned to see around it."

Sunshine grinds his teeth a little, says nothing.

Boys department is easy enough. He holds up a set to himself, scans the size, and rolls his eyes a little as he does the calculations. He gets two pairs of jeans for himself and four more doubles, progressively smaller. A dozen or more black t-shirts in little packs, no logos. Overshirts in muted plaid, testing the fabric between his fingers for warmth. Hoodies, still no logos, nothing to identify anybody, nothing to make anyone distinct. Varying colors. The jeans match, the undershirts, nothing else. The plaids don’t even match the hoodies; it looks organic rather than organized.

He scuffs his sneaker against the floor. Clicks his tongue a little. Muttering to himself, Sunshine figures. Talking to siblings who aren’t there.

The girls’ department is next, and One doesn’t pause at the edge of it. Shows no hesitation, nothing but cool analysis as he scans the rows of color, of princesses, puppies, stars, hearts and glitter.

For Twooie, his choices are girl versions of the boys’ outfits. He pauses for approximately six seconds before he picks out a hoodie for her: reversible fleece, a more teal-tinted light blue that flips to bright purple. Her jeans are the same shade as his, but he makes sure to get some with just a hint of a flare, ribbon at the cuffs but not sequins. No lace. He holds his breath when he gets her a sweater and a sweatshirt instead of a plaid overshirt, leopard print and camo, both in colors that are feminine, sometimes pastel and sometimes bold but not neon, nothing too bright.

"She don’t like it, I’ll fuckin’ trade with her," he mutters. "I don’t give a shit."

Sunshine doesn't doubt it.

Four’s motif is stars, and Sunshine wonders for a minute before he figures a fella with sisters knows more about girls than one without and lets it go. Seems like the color doesn’t matter, but stars on everything, stars, gems, sequins and things that fly. He seems perfectly confident here, too.

And then he gets to the babies’ section and completely freezes.

"What’s the matter?" Sunshine asks.

"I just-" He shakes his head. "Fuck, I don’t know."

"You’re using that word a lot," Sunshine observes. "You realize the impact lessens the more you use it."

"Look, I just-" He scrubs his hand through his hair. "I don’t want to pick for Eight. Eight ain’t said nothing yet."

Sunshine squints, mystified.

"Hell," One says, and Eight’s outfits are a mix, half girl clothes, half boy clothes, pink and black and plaid and glittery, so it would look like a hailstorm of hand-me-downs if everything weren’t new.

"Pajamas?" Sunshine asks. "Socks? Sneakers? Underwear?"

One draws in a deep, slow breath, rolling his eyes back and counting down from ten. He ends up with pajamas and socks, yes, but he’s apparently decided shoes will have to wait, the ones they have will have to work for the time being.

"Ain’t that an extra set?"

"What, these?" One is folding the clothes like he’s done laundry all his life. The hangers are all on the side of the cart. "They’re for me. It’s funny and they’re fucking pajamas, I don’t care."

Sunshine squints at the pajama top.  _Don’t go bacon my heart_. He snorts.

"S’a fucking  _pun_ ,” he mutters.

"You ever met a goddamn kid who didn’t like puns?" One asks him, frosty as ever.

Sunshine shrugs. “Don't remember.”

"Don’t  _exist_ ,” One says. Baseball-themed pajamas for all the other boys. Extra underwear for Five and Six. Trainers for Seven and diapers for Eight.

"Food’s on you," One says, eyeballing the cart before climbing on the end. "I don’t know shit about provisions, and you seem to know what we can’t eat. Impress me."

Sunshine grunts, aims for the grocery section.

"And tell me about Steve," One says, quieter, eyes fixed on his face. "Now that I ain’t busy."

Sunshine tries thinking about Steve, has yet to really settle on how to begin. There's the Smithsonian brochure he keeps in his pocket, but even that'll need something of an explanation. Though thinking on it now, it’s not the struggle of context that throws him; it's a memory of too-big hands carefully smearing graphite into paper.

He doesn’t realize he’s stopped until One’s foot collides with his shin. He looks down. 

"The fuck’s wrong with you; can’t think and walk at the same time?" 

Sunshine checks back over his shoulder, at the other side of the store, in the opposite direction of the food. He finds the sign of the section he wants, hanging about a third of the way down. He looks back to One, who's glaring openly at him now with his little mouth twisted in one corner. 

"Art supplies," Sunshine says.

One’s eyes narrow, widen, narrow again. He sets his jaw crooked and raises his chin. “Whaddabout ‘em?” 

"Should grab ‘em before the food." Sunshine nods over his shoulder; the office supply is just a ways past the boys section. He thinks One may not have even seen it, determined as he was to meet his mission parameters.

One continues sizing him up, lips pursed tight. Sunshine waits and, eventually, the kid cuts his eyes to the side before doubling back, taking the front of the cart by one hand and steering it back around to face their new heading. ”Yeah, a’right,” he mutters. “Let’s make this quick.”

One is so careful to keep his face schooled into something close to bored disinterest as they enter the first aisle of supplies. Sunshine can almost hear him counting breaths in his head. He doesn’t want Sunshine to know what this means to him, but even that ain’t new. No, no, he’s always been so careful not to show interest in the things he  _really_ wants, ‘lest Bucky get into his head he should work a new set of pencils or paints into the budget. When he did buy ‘em, Bucky always had to time it just right, give him the gift at  _just_  the right time, or Steve’d get madder than a hornet and start in on him about spending money he didn’t have on shit they didn’t ‘need’. Like Bucky cared if they ‘needed’ it or not. Steve wanted it. That’s more than enough reason to fork over a couple of nickels.

Like, like right now, Steve’s looking through the paints and Bucky swears to Christ, if he doesn’t pick that big set he’s looked back at no less than three times now, Buck’s gonna sneak it into the cart under the…kids clothes when Steve…? Ain’t looking? 

No, not Steve, One. Kid calls himself One and calls the Asset Sunshine. Not ‘Bucky’. Not Steve.

Sunshine looks away from One and chews the inside of his own cheek until he feels grounded again, the pain locking him here in the present. He tries to find something besides the clone to focus on.

There’s a quick moment of panic when he sees that red, white and blue shield out the corner of his eye, but it passes once he realizes he’s not gone back to imagining things. Captain America is not, in fact, here. It’s just his likeness on a cover of an activity book. Sunshine picks the book off its shelf and starts flipping through it, finding coloring pages, cross-words, pictures that require you to ‘connect-the-dots’. He stops flipping when he reaches a maze that has little picture of Captain America down at one end and a boy strapped to a table at the other. ‘Help Cap Save Bucky!’ sits above it in big, block letters.

Sunshine shuts the book.

He starts to put it back where he found it (face down, he’ll put it  _face fucking down_ ), but thinks better of it. He puts it in the cart instead. 

One’s head whips around. “What the fuck are you doing?” he demands. He sets down the booklet of construction paper in his hands and storms back to the cart, holding eye-contact with Sunshine until he’s there, until he’s able to reach in and retrieve what’s been added without his say. “And what the fuck is this?” Sunshine opens his mouth, but One continues with a snort, “‘Captain  _America_ ’? Jesus Christ what the fuck is he  _wearing_?”

"It’s his outfit from the comics," Sunshine mutters. It’s one of those times he only knows something’s true after it’s gone and left his mouth. 

One raises his eyebrows, half smirking now. “What, you a ‘Captain America' fanboy, Sunshine?”

Sunshine presses his lips together as he settles on a reply. “He's Steve.”

One’s brows knit. He watches Sunshine for a long moment, squinting. Reading his face is like recalling some old conditioning he hasn’t had to use in a while, but it hasn’t faded a bit.

 _You’re bullshitting_  me, those bright blue eyes say, that disapproving tightening of his lips that makes them go a little white. _Don’t bullshit me. Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter. I’ve lied all my life to survive, I can smell a fib at ten paces, don’t you fuck with me._

But he’s not. Sunshine isn’t fucking with him. He might have the capacity to now, he hasn’t really tried. 

"That’s," One begins, then stops, and Sunshine can see the wheels turning, clicking into place. "That doesn’t-"

The kid sits down. Right there, right on the floor, spreads the book across his lap, and there it is on the sixth fucking page, the radiation chamber and the tiny, towheaded guy in the before picture at the Smithsonian. He’s cartoonishly gaunt, nothing like the scattered memories the asset’s been forcing down like unwanted food on a sour stomach.

One’s gone quiet. His hands are shaking, so when he momentarily pushes up to his knees and fishes the inhaler out of his pocket, it ain’t a surprise. His face is blank as he hits it, holds the breath, and hits it again.

He’s so still, and the asset wants to ask questions but he doesn’t, even though he knows how it feels to have a brain work overtime. Just as he goes to speak, kid closes the book, stands up, and drops it back in the cart. He shoves his inhaler back in his pocket. Without looking at ‘Sunshine,’ without further consideration, he picks up two sets of the fancy, not quite expensive water colors, three packs of colored pencils, four huge boxes of crayons and six giant sketchbooks with acid free paper. His ears are glowing as he dumps the whole mess on top of the clothes and climbs back on the end of the cart.

"You’re angry," he says.

"No," One disagrees, his eyes unfocused, distant.

His instincts flare up again.  _Bucky_  wants to push  _Steve_ , but  _the asset_  doesn’t want to interrogate a fellow  _conditioned operative_.

"1943," he hears himself say; his voice thick and low, putting the pamphlet in his own words for the first time. "Project Rebirth. The second test subject, but the only success."

"Alpha-Theta," One murmurs, his eyes unseeing as they rest on the art supplies and the asset turns the cart around to steer toward the food department again. "Subject One, Set Nine. Beta-Theta. Subject Two, Set  _Nine._ ”

His teeth come down, grind together.

 _At least two of them, nine times. Eighteen of them that they know of plus the little ones, no way of knowing what became of the ones who came before, not with the wipes and the reconditioning and the isolation_.

Bucky sees Steve. Steve in third grade, sick in bed, trying to laugh and coughing so hard they’re both sure Steve’s going to die and neither of them will say so. Holding hands so tight their fingers bruise.

The asset flexes the fingers of the metal hand. One is still frowning blankly into the cart.

"They made dozens of us," One mutters, eyes finally focusing, Sunshine thinks, on that bright, bull’s-eye of a shield. "Because  _he_  worked.”

"He’s alive," he says, not sure why he’s saying it. "He was- like me. Frozen."  _Frozen on accident not on purpose but frozen, frozen for a long, long time._

"Of course he was," One says, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a smirk the asset knows to be pained wryness.

They pass by the book section on the way to the grocery. One nicks the thick Captain America biography off the shelf without Sunshine even slowing the cart, throws it on the pile, and doesn’t look at it again. 

He heads for the carbonated beverages first, since they’re near the back of the store. A twelve pack of beer from the refrigerated case, two cases of diet ginger ale from the shelf that make One’s brows furrow.

"Settles your stomach," Sunshine grunts. One shrugs.

Dairy next, but he skips the milk and picks out a carton of unsweetened soy milk and a carton of almond milk, a dozen and a half cups of Greek yogurt. One squints, almost smiles.

"How do you know all this shit?" he asks.

Sunshine shrugs. He doesn't remember. He knows none of this shit was around when Bucky was  _with_ Steve, doesn’t know why he knows carbohydrates are the same thing as sugar and what doesn’t have them. He skips cheese, grabs three different kinds of hummus. Vegetables, all of the vegetables that can be eaten raw, vinegar based dressing, dark, leafy greens, carrots, celery is bullshit but it’s edible. A couple different kinds of lettuce. Kohlrabi. Fuck, feeding this little wrack of rabbits is going to be a goddamn pain in the ass, but he’ll live. He’ll eat what they eat. Pita bread. Chickpeas. Nuts, mostly lightly salted and  _unsalted-_  mix them together for the  _right_  level of salt, where the shit does  _that_ thought come from- but random flavored ones that make him squint, too, because why the fuck not? They’ll take turns trying whatever until they figure out what they like.

One actually has a few suggestions, after he’s had time to digest his thoughts a little more.

"Mushrooms," One says, gesturing to them. "Everybody eats ‘em but me. ‘Specially Portobello. Tofu’s all right.’

Sunshine nods, tosses shit in the cart. It's almost overflowing by the time they're done, with the baby food on the top in little glass jars that make Sunshine nervous. Once again, Eight's the hardest. Seven, according to One, can alternate, since he has teeth.

He squints. Pauses. Smirks. Heads to the back of the store again, the camping section. Grabs some extra materials for the back of the jeep so the kids can pad themselves and strap in better, and a big cooler to keep the vegetables. As he’s loading the conveyor belt to pay, One makes two trips and hauls the ice over from beyond the counter without Sunshine saying a word, which is good.

 _Kid’s a good little soldier,_  he thinks, and then inwardly flinches at the recognition.  _A good little soldier. Fuck, Stevie, **you were never supposed to be a soldier**_ **.**

Sunshine wishes Bucky would shut the Hell up sometimes.

They load up the jeep. One pulls his weight. He moves whatever he can, even helps Sunshine put the top on, shimmying up the side of the jeep like a monkey.

"Might have to upgrade," he mutters. "Get a better backseat we can fit car seats in."

"Where’d you even  _get_  a vehicle?” One asks.

"Stole it," Sunshine says, shrugging.

"That going to be a problem?"

"From  _them_ ,” the asset clarifies, flashing an ugly smile that One copies immediately. “Dead bastards can’t report theft.”

One clambers into the shotgun seat while Sunshine returns the cart, and then they’re on the road back to the hotel. One flicks on the radio, looks like he’s studying how it works as much as the channels and music. The asset finds it the skipping stations soothing, but he’s glad Bucky doesn’t pipe up to tell him why.

"Thank you," One says, leaning back in the seat and closing his eyes.

"For?" Sunshine asks, glancing at him.

One shrugs. “Nobody ever thanks an asset for anything. We’re  _out_. We’re goddamn  _people_  now, aren’t we?”

Sunshine stares down the highway. They are. They  _are_  goddamn people now, aren’t they? What a revelation that is. He hadn’t really thought about it.

"I was born in 1917," he says, twisting his grip a little on the steering wheel. "I met Steve in an alley in a fistfight in 1926, took his side. He got a black eye and I got my loose tooth knocked out. He was my best friend."

He can feel One’s eyes on him. He lets it sit.

"Goddamn," One says, leaning back again, folding his arms over his chest. "Steve’s a fucking  _jinx_.”

Sunshine snorts, the second laugh this little fucker's gotten out of him tonight. He can't remember the last time he laughed. He can't remember a lot of shit. Doesn't want most of what he can. He flexes his hands on the steering wheel.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, he is."

* * *

 

"They’re gone," Four says, dropping the blinds and turning from the window.

Twooie hands Sev to Five and hops off the bed. Trip follows suit, and the three of them, Two, Trip and Four, begin a proper sweep of the hotel room. They check the drawers and closets, beneath the bed and behind the other pieces of furniture. They don’t find any bugs. Trip finds Sunshine’s duffle and pulls it out to the center of the room with Four’s help. It’s soon joined by a remote control, most likely to the screen parallel to the bed, and a thick book. Both were in the nightstand.

Four picks up the book. “Holy Bib-ble,” she reads.

"Bible," Trip says. He and Twooie are emptying the duffle, sorting things into piles. Clothing, weaponry, files, hand-written notes.

Four sets the book aside long enough to decide on which knives she wants to take for herself. Twooie takes all the ammunition. Trip double checks the pockets before starting to put things back in; first the clothing, then the bullet-less guns, then the remaining knives.

Five makes a noise, reedy and demanding, and Trip stops. “You want this one?” Trip asks, turning to his brother and holding up the knife in his hand. Five shakes his head and points at the bag. Trip nods and exchanges the knife he has for the last one he put away. When he shows it to Five, Five nods. The knife is passed to Four who carries it to Five. Trip returns to the duffle. 

Twooie has taken all the files and notes for herself and begins sorting them in earnest in front of her. All of the files are Hydra, and she’s fairly certain all of the notes are Sunshine’s, at least until she begins to flip through them. The writing is confused; the language switches often, as does the handwriting, and she isn’t sure if this is more proof of Sunshine’s fraying programming or perhaps proof he isn’t working alone. 

"Wooooow this paper is  _thin_ ,” Four says. Twooie looks up to find she’s cracked the Holy Bible over her lap and is rubbing a page between her thumb and forefinger. “And look at how tiny the text is; this is a long, long book.”

"Don’t start there," Trip says. "Start at the beginning."

"Okay." The book snaps shut and then gets rolled onto its back. Four opens it to the first page and starts to read; "Genesis, one. One, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Four glances up, face already scrunching in distaste. "This is already weird." Trip motions for her to keep going. "Two, and the earth was without form and void? Form and void, and darkness was upon the face in the—of the deep. And the spirit of God—it’s capitalized. They capitalized ‘spirit’."

"Go on."

Four sighs, “And the  _Spirit_  of God moved upon the face of the waters. Three, and God said ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”

"…anti-climactic," Trip says. 

"Why are there numbers?" Five asks. 

"I don’t know," says Four. "There just are. See?" She tips the book up for him to read. 

"They’re tiny," Five says.

"Maybe you aren’t supposed to read those," Trip says. 

"Fine," says Four. "And god saw the light, that it was good."

Four continues to read aloud, occasionally dropping off to discuss lines and phrasing with Trip. Twooie stops listening. She returns to the notes. 

While she can’t read the Cyrillic, the parts in German, or the few places where the English is in code, there’s enough in plain English and English shorthand for her to piece together a few solid observations; first, that the notes written on loose-leaf and scraps of paper have been transcribed into a small notebook. Second, it’s most likely this is all written by Sunshine who is, third, attempting to keep track of his memories. ‘Steve’ is mentioned often, usually followed by ‘Bucky’, ‘James’, ‘Howling Commandos’ and/or ‘Brooklyn’.

"Wait, so she’s a  _clone_?”

Twooie looks up to find Trip and Four exchanging confused looks. 

"Who’s a clone?" she asks. 

"This lady," Four says, motioning to the book. "Lord God just put Adam under and cloned a lady from him because Adam didn’t want the animals as helpers."

"…okay," says Twooie. 

"What happens next?" Five asks. He and Six are listening intently. "What does the lady help with?"

"Well, uh, okay, Adam said, ‘this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’" Four and Trip exchange uneasy looks before glancing to Two. 

"Not all women are clones of men," Twooie says. The younger pair relaxes.

"Therefore," Four reads, "shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave onto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wi— _the man and his wife_ , it says the man and his wife, they married, he married his clone.”

"We’re done," Trip says, motioning for her to hand over the book. "This book is weird and we’re done." Four passes it off then wipes her hands on her pants as if to clean them. Trip tosses the book back towards the night stand and trades it for the remote. Twooie does not go back to exploring the notes.

They used screens often for lessons and testing back in the facility. She isn’t sure what they would be used for outside. 

The screen turns on to a still picture of water overlaid with scrolling text. There’s a large, green number in the upper left corner. Soft, soothing music plays. Trip presses a button and begins flipping through different feeds, each with their own number. He passes what looks to be a giant car crushing several other, smaller cars and Four hits his arm and tells him to stop and go back. “I know what number it was,” Trip says, “I wanna see what else there is first.” 

"We’re going back to that one," Four insists. "And go slower!" 

Trip does as she requests and pauses on each feed for several seconds before moving on, long enough for them to catch bits of conversation. 

“ _—and place the chicken in the bowl to—”_

_"—now and you’ll receive a complimentary—"_

_"—expect us to do now that Hydra has—_ ”

Two, Four and Five all start talking at once, yelling at Trip to stop and stay on the number, but Trip’s already dropped the remote and is holding his hands over his head. 

"Shush!" Twooie hisses and everyone goes silent.

Two old, white men are talking behind a desk, a photo of a half-crushed, smoldering building beside a body of water superimposed between them. 

"— _who can we possibly trust?_ " asks the man on the left, finishing the sentence they’d come in on and mostly spoken over.

“ _Well, I know who I don’t trust; Natasha Romanoff, aka, Natalia Romanova, aka the_ Black Widow _.”_

 _"What I don’t understand is why we had her, a known_ spy, _speaking out against Hydra_ and  _Shield, and we haven’t heard word one from Captain America. Not word one, in over two months.”_

The picture changes, splitting into two. On one side is a woman with straight red hair and a well fit suit. On the other is a blond man standing at attention in what looks to be an operatives uniform.

“ _Doesn’t he owe it to his country, to come forward, to explain what he’s seen? Why is it that we have_ ,” and the man motions to the picture of the woman, “ _this woman, who isn’t even_ American,  _addressing the American people about this catastrophe? This destruction of trust? Why not Captain Rogers?”_

 _"It just goes back to what I was saying,"_  the other old man picks up from the one who was complaining.  _"I don’t even think he is Captain Rogers. He’s an impostor, he has to be. Maybe he was a decent one- he did well enough in New York- but the illusion’s gone now, isn’t it? How much of those leaked Hydra papers have we sorted through? Has anybody seen anything about the super soldier program? About Steve Rogers?"_

There are shots now, from a big fight, monsters of some kind attacking a big city, and the blond man and the red haired woman in the thick of it, fighting the- aliens, if the text scrolling across the bottom of the pictures is to be believed.  _Two years since the Battle of Manhattan_ , the scrolling lines say, and  _Where are the Avengers?_

After the fight, the blond man-  _Rogers_ \- looking increasingly uncomfortable as he’s put through a gauntlet of interviews and photo shoots. There are other people from the battle who show up on the screen, including a man in sunglasses with a dark beard-  _Tony Stark declines to comment-_  and a black man with a beard and an eye patch, but the sunglasses wearing man makes rude gestures to the cameras and escapes into fancy cars, when he’s not getting stuff blown up-  _Stark’s Malibu mansion targeted by terrorists-_  and the black man’s funeral is a state affair  _Director Fury: hero or Hydra casualty?_

Rogers is the one left holding the bag, it looks like, but he doesn’t want it, and he’s disappeared.

 _"And these other fellas,"_  the first white man is saying.  _"The gun-toting guy with the arm and the mask-"_

"Sunshine!" Four yelps, pointing.

_"And the guy with the wings, who are they? Where have they gone? Why is Maria Hill barricading herself in at Stark? Why did Stark hire her, anyway? They have to know she’s a liability. Shield Agents, Hydra Agents, how is anyone supposed to know the difference? And yet we’ve got them merging into the CIA, NSA, Homeland Security-"_

"We have got to get an information source," Trip grumbles, crossing his arms and pulling his legs up as well, crossing them at the ankles.

 _"All questions that could be answered by Captain Rogers,"_  the second old man is saying, banging on his desk.  _"Where is he? He’s AWOL, that’s where, as AWOL as the other Avengers have been since Manhattan. I’m telling you, he’s a fake!"_

In previous interviews, Rogers squints under bright lights. His forced smile is a grimace, his eyes, in close ups, are as blue as his uniform. His shield is circular, offensive and defensive, and that’s a cool trick, but Twooie keeps coming back to his face, frowning, frowning harder-

"Oh!" Four says, and Five freezes in place, frowning at her from where he stands beside the screen. "Five, don’t move. Don’t move an inch."

Five grunts, lowering his face so he can glare at her more effectively from under his brows.

"I said-" Four begins, but Twooie says, "C’mere," and Twooie trumps Four, so Four shuts up quick, and Five clambers up the bed and into her lap. Twooie cuddles him absently, breathing in the smell of shampoo from his damp hair. Six, still wrapped around Eight and propping up Sev, all of them clad in towels, glances over at them, but Twooie is thinking, and everybody can see it, so they’re silent.

 _"We only know what the government has told us about Project Rebirth,"_  the man on the television is saying.  _"About Steve Rogers. We only know what Shield told us about the Avengers, and they didn’t even know they had Hydra crawling all through their systems. We’ve got our best researchers combing through their supposed information leaks, and we’ll get whatever evidence we can, especially anything- anything! - that might explain why Captain Rogers is derelict of duty in reporting to the American public about this catastrophe."_

 _Where is Captain Rogers?_ the ticker scrolls ask.  _Where is Captain America?_

"We want more of that," Twooie says, low and grim.

"Why?" Trip asks, and Four is squinting at her, too.

"What did Sunshine say to One, back at the nursery?" Twooie asks them, rubbing Five’s stomach so he’ll be still. Five is peering up at her.

"Steve," Five says, and Twooie flashes him a tiny smile. He returns it, his fist curling in the front of her shirt. "Said One looks like Steve."

"And those two," Twooie says, gesturing to the television, "Talking about Captain Rogers being in the middle of this Hydra mess, what’d they say  _his_  name was?”

“ _Steve_ ,” Trip and Four say, their heads pivoting right back to the screen. Rogers doesn’t look like any of them, not right off- he’s too big, first of all, built like Sunshine but even bigger, but he’s blond, like them, and he has those bright blue eyes like them, and the way he glares and flinches under the lights, his tight, wary, cornered posture, his feigned ease under too much scrutiny-

Captain Rogers moves like the Things. He shifts from One-  _in Manhattan, under attack, jumping, bending, ricocheting, giving directions and orders-_  to Twooie-  _in interviews, stiff and saying just what he has to in order to get them to leave him alone-_  and back, without any hitches at all. He’s big, sure, bulky, even, but it’s in the eyes, in the jaw, in the posture, in the way the smiles never really go up past his mouth.

"Is he a clone, though?" Trip says, frowning. "The Captain Rogers they’re looking for? Is he the original Captain Rogers, or is he-"

"Like us?" Four interrupts.

"I don’t know," Twooie admits, and ignores it when Trip and Four exchange nervous glances, snuggling Five closer. Sev makes a jealous noise, but Eight tugs his hair and he goes quiet.

"Sunshine might," Four ventures.

"Or he might not," Trip retorts.

"He’ll know more than us, maybe more than them." Twooie jerks her chin at the men on the screen—or man, as the image is now of just the one on the right, looking straight ahead and addressing the camera with the serious, heavy gaze of someone who wants to impress the belief that what they’re saying is  _right_. Twooie’s jaw tightens.

She hates that look. 

“ _—and what we deserve now is the_ truth _. No more hiding in the shadows. Either he comes out to address this nation he’s sworn to protect or he comes out as a fraud! No matter what, we_  will _find the truth, because that’s what we_ do _here. We are the seekers of truth. Goodnight_.”

The camera pans back to reveal the whole desk, a whole room, as dramatic music beings to play. Twooie turns her attention back to her siblings. 

"It’s likely he’s Hydra," she says. 

"Steve?" Four asks. 

Twooie nods. “He could be, if he  _is_  a clone. If Sunshine  _is_  a Hydra defect and Steve  _was_ his handler.” One had suggested it and Twooie agreed; the loyalty Sunshine showed them, all because of a  _resemblance_ , was nothing if not suspect. He really had no reason in the world to help them, to free them and provide for them, and yet he had, like it was a compulsion. A reaction that strong and that irrational could only be implanted.

"He was involved with ‘Shield’," Trip pronounces the word carefully, "which sounds like a busted Hydra cover."

"I dunno," Four says. "Cuz the only reason they think he’s a fake is cuza him not, not doing  _interviews_. What if he’s not doing interviews because he  _hates interviews_? It looked like he hates interviews. And what’s throwing a shield around and punching enemies in the face got to do with talking in front of a camera? Maybe he isn’t doing it cuz it’s not his  _job_.”

Twooie ‘hmms’ just as Trip says, “yeah, maybe.”

"Why’s he so big?" Five asks. Twooie looks down and finds him frowning, chin tucked tight against his collarbone and shoulders up by his ears. 

"I don’t know," Twooie says, "but he must’ve looked like us, once." She rubs his arm, trying to get him to loosen his shoulders. "We’ve got more questions than answers, don’t we?"

"Yeah," he mumbles. 

"Whaddabout the papers?" Trip asks. "In the bag?"

"Strong lead," Twooie says. "There’s repeated mention of Steve in Sunshine’s notes."

Trip signs the equivalent of ‘are you gonna…?’ to which Twooie nods the affirmative. Trip immediately comes over and Five is transferred from Two’s lap into his. Despite his initial squirming—he’s always so irritable at having to be moved—Five settles quickly and is leaning all his weight into Trip before Twooie’s even back in front of the notes on the floor. 

As with Four and the Bible, Twooie starts at the beginning. 

 


End file.
